Gyrfalcon:GAT_00: violentsalvation: GAT_00: So, unconfirmed stories, but from a source considered to be credible.

Dammit that sucks. I was hoping it was BS. But thanks for the links and the text.

It may very well be BS. It's North Korea. How the fark are we supposed to prove anything from there?

But this seems difficult to dream up.

I saw it earlier on an AP feed, and again on CNBC's screen runner. You can take that for what it's worth, but given that that region has a history of horrible famines and horribliler responses, I can totally believe it.

could this be some sort of idiot writing exercise? I mean the two headed cow was real, right? I'm sure there's an issue with drought and I'm sure there starving people. Hell, there's starving people in NYC and LA and intellectually starving people in Kansas but I won't get into that one.My point is, I've seen nothing else on this any where else and certainly not in the mainstream where it would mean extra advertising revenue.

They should pass a mandate that requires a large percentage of their most popular food crop (I'm guessing rice, in this case) be burned for fuel. That's done wonders for food prices in the US! Problem solved!

Prank Call of Cthulhu:"Killin' sheep was kinder more fun - but d'ye know, 'twan't quite satisfyin'. Queer haow a cravin' gits a holt on ye - As ye love the Almighty, young man, don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun to make me hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy - here, set still, what's ailin' ye? - I didn't do nothin', only I wondered haow 'twud be ef I did - They say meat makes blood an' flesh, an' gives ye new life, so I wondered ef 'twudn't make a man live longer an' longer ef 'twas more the same - "--H. P. Lovecraft, "The Picture in the House"

One thing that puzzles me about that story is how the narrator just wandered into the house. I realize it was raining outside but were the mores of that time so different that during a rain storm people just let themselves in?

YES! Think of how many kids would get eaten if the poor sods had a nice single shot .45 to finish the fast little buggers off quicker. Beating them to death with a stick can be very time consuming. Mmmmmmm...consuming.

If I had millions of dollars at my disposal I would seriously consider finding a way to kill this person by any means possible including doing it myself, if for no other reason than saving the 100's of thousands that await a slow death by hunger. ergghhh.

tonguedepressor:Eating your own children and digging up corpses for food is the most horrible thing that could ever happen. I don't care if a meteor came down and wiped out Australia its still not as bad as that act.

This is it. The pinnacle of grotesque human behavior, nothing can top this. Go ahead, try, it'll still fall short of eating your own children or eating brought up from their grave corpses.

Oh, I'm sure I could think of some things. For example, I'm not even hungry right now.

Shadowknight:sminkypinky: The US should invade and impose democracy - you know, like they did in afghanistan, iraq... They were so successful, I'm sure that it would be fine.Hang on - no oil there - so fukem.

Not that you're not right, but don't forget that while China treats them like an unruly stepchild from a forgotten marriage most of the time, they do OFFICIALLY support them. Going in to NK would start WWIII.

Governments have historically been Thug States. The ancient kings of Mesopotamia literally "owned" everything under their control, including the people. Except for the gradual erosion of "Divine Right" in the British Isle (the original "trickle down" theory of power), not much has changed through the ages... except for that little experiment in 1776, where the "boss class" tried to create a new concept of Government existing for the benefit of, and controlled by, the citizens.

It's time for the worldwide "boss class" to stop hanging together and start asking hard questions about what is, and is not, a "legitimate" government.

(Note the similarity here to that other reprehensible hierarchy, the Catholic Church and the pedophia issue.)

If I were king.....

Elite commando teams could (perhaps not without casualties) eliminate the top leadership of Thug States. Keep doing so until the new Thug leadership that fills the vacuum gets the message and adopts policies that work towards non-Thug behavior.

tonguedepressor:If I had millions of dollars at my disposal I would seriously consider finding a way to kill this person by any means possible including doing it myself, if for no other reason than saving the 100's of thousands that await a slow death by hunger. ergghhh.

Taking off my Kim Jong-Un hat for a moment...

Consider the difficulty in reuniting East and West Germany. In that case there was only 40 years of separation, and the Soviet Union wasn't as explicitly tyrannical as North Korean's ruling party, there were actually people there who did care for the people. It was much more political and fiefdom (like China) than North Korea's total 1984 implementation.

The East Germans still had some people there who remembered what it was like before. They had educated people (if not many), and they had the potential for economic growth. North Korean's have been left to stagnate for 60+ years with intentional destruction of education and the concept of entrepreneurship. Even in the best case scenario where the oligarchs of NK walked away to go live a life of luxury in Fiji, the entire country of the North would have to be (pardon the term) re-educated, supported, and financed for decades if not an entire century. There really isn't much there that lets them get out of this without massive welfare.

A good example of the problem is a country like Haiti. After the slaves rebelled and threw off the French, the French came back and demanded extreme reparations (yes, the slave owners demanded reparations from the slaves), Haitians were on the hook to France well into the 1960s, paying almost all of their net GDP to France rather than improving their country. The result is that Haiti has nothing much left, and is almost wholly depended on foreign support to avoid horrific famine and warfare. North Korea would be this x1000 as any easily extracted natural resources have already been exploited and sold to enrich the elite. I'm not sure what if anything can be done short of just 'adopting' the entire population.

And that doesn't even begin to scratch the logistics side of ensuring that the people actually get fed even if the world decides to foot the bill.

tonguedepressor:Eating your own children and digging up corpses for food is the most horrible thing that could ever happen. I don't care if a meteor came down and wiped out Australia its still not as bad as that act.

This is it. The pinnacle of grotesque human behavior, nothing can top this. Go ahead, try, it'll still fall short of eating your own children or eating brought up from their grave corpses.

There is one thing worse, and its described in Bloodlands, the book about the horrors in Eastern Europe between 1921 and 1945. It was so grotesque I put the book down for a while. For warning for people who don't want to see it:

*****

People in the Ukraine were so starving during the Holodomor that at an orphanage, the people running the plan saw a bunch of kids huddled on a bed. When they went to see what they were huddled around, they saw that 5 or 6 boys were eating the legs of another buy, who was still alive. The little boy who was being eaten wasn't resisting - he was actually joining, eating himself.

tonguedepressor:Eating your own children and digging up corpses for food is the most horrible thing that could ever happen. I don't care if a meteor came down and wiped out Australia its still not as bad as that act.

This is it. The pinnacle of grotesque human behavior, nothing can top this. Go ahead, try, it'll still fall short of eating your own children or eating brought up from their grave corpses.

And it will all be blamed on the people who tried to stop it before it got started, instead of the people actually responsible for making this happen.

/because the horror is completely and singularly self-inflicted//and we can't ever blame the victims, or the victims' chosen leaders///so we heap more blame on whoever believes in free speech strongly enough to let us falsely accuse them, instead

Tatterdemalian:And it will all be blamed on the people who tried to stop it before it got started, instead of the people actually responsible for making this happen.

/because the horror is completely and singularly self-inflicted//and we can't ever blame the victims, or the victims' chosen leaders///so we heap more blame on whoever believes in free speech strongly enough to let us falsely accuse them, instead

tonguedepressor:Eating your own children and digging up corpses for food is the most horrible thing that could ever happen. I don't care if a meteor came down and wiped out Australia its still not as bad as that act.

This is it. The pinnacle of grotesque human behavior, nothing can top this. Go ahead, try, it'll still fall short of eating your own children or eating brought up from their grave corpses.

Well...one could make it worse by having sex with the bodies, prior to cooking, to tenderize.

DamnYankees:tonguedepressor: Eating your own children and digging up corpses for food is the most horrible thing that could ever happen. I don't care if a meteor came down and wiped out Australia its still not as bad as that act.

This is it. The pinnacle of grotesque human behavior, nothing can top this. Go ahead, try, it'll still fall short of eating your own children or eating brought up from their grave corpses.

There is one thing worse, and its described in Bloodlands, the book about the horrors in Eastern Europe between 1921 and 1945. It was so grotesque I put the book down for a while. For warning for people who don't want to see it:

*****

People in the Ukraine were so starving during the Holodomor that at an orphanage, the people running the plan saw a bunch of kids huddled on a bed. When they went to see what they were huddled around, they saw that 5 or 6 boys were eating the legs of another buy, who was still alive. The little boy who was being eaten wasn't resisting - he was actually joining, eating himself.

That - that right there - is the worst thing I've ever heard of.

I think this one will have to go to the jury. Here it is. Which is worse:

1) Being alive while being eaten and actually joining in of the eating of your own body.

or

2) Letting your child die of hunger or disease and burying them and then later exhuming their rotting corpses and eating them.

I guess I feel like eating a corpse after it has already died isn't really that horrible. It's taboo of course, but its not hurting anyone, and meat is meat. I think willingly eating yourself is 100 times worse.

I guess I feel like eating a corpse after it has already died isn't really that horrible. It's taboo of course, but its not hurting anyone, and meat is meat. I think willingly eating yourself is 100 times worse.

We need to include the emotional equate of digging up and eating your own rotting child into the balance of the decision making.

Bender The Offender:sminkypinky: The US should invade and impose democracy - you know, like they did in afghanistan, iraq... They were so successful, I'm sure that it would be fine.Hang on - no oil there - so fukem.

Yes, antagonize our largest trading partner and debt holder nation, maybe you'd also like us to dip our nuts in all of the Russian vodka to complete your masterpiece of diplomatic nuance? Maybe finger bang the queen and then wipe our fingers on the Magna Carta? What other brilliant ideas do you have that are absolutely guaranteed to piss off allies we shouldn't be pissing off?

DamnYankees:Tatterdemalian: And it will all be blamed on the people who tried to stop it before it got started, instead of the people actually responsible for making this happen.

/because the horror is completely and singularly self-inflicted//and we can't ever blame the victims, or the victims' chosen leaders///so we heap more blame on whoever believes in free speech strongly enough to let us falsely accuse them, instead

tonguedepressor:DamnYankees: tonguedepressor: Eating your own children and digging up corpses for food is the most horrible thing that could ever happen. I don't care if a meteor came down and wiped out Australia its still not as bad as that act.

This is it. The pinnacle of grotesque human behavior, nothing can top this. Go ahead, try, it'll still fall short of eating your own children or eating brought up from their grave corpses.

There is one thing worse, and its described in Bloodlands, the book about the horrors in Eastern Europe between 1921 and 1945. It was so grotesque I put the book down for a while. For warning for people who don't want to see it:

*****

People in the Ukraine were so starving during the Holodomor that at an orphanage, the people running the plan saw a bunch of kids huddled on a bed. When they went to see what they were huddled around, they saw that 5 or 6 boys were eating the legs of another buy, who was still alive. The little boy who was being eaten wasn't resisting - he was actually joining, eating himself.

That - that right there - is the worst thing I've ever heard of.

I think this one will have to go to the jury. Here it is. Which is worse:

1) Being alive while being eaten and actually joining in of the eating of your own body.

or

2) Letting your child die of hunger or disease and burying them and then later exhuming their rotting corpses and eating them.

We await your verdict.

Number 2 is singular, and could just be a Jeffrey Dahmer type thing. Maybe not, but it's still possible.

Number 1 means that things have gone so far beyond bad that you are so hungry that you would eat yourself. That's not the potential cherry-picking of 'ick' stories to show the worst (which may be due to mental illness), it's showing that it is the situation which is causing EVERYONE to engage.

Gergesa:Prank Call of Cthulhu: "Killin' sheep was kinder more fun - but d'ye know, 'twan't quite satisfyin'. Queer haow a cravin' gits a holt on ye - As ye love the Almighty, young man, don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter begun to make me hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy - here, set still, what's ailin' ye? - I didn't do nothin', only I wondered haow 'twud be ef I did - They say meat makes blood an' flesh, an' gives ye new life, so I wondered ef 'twudn't make a man live longer an' longer ef 'twas more the same - "--H. P. Lovecraft, "The Picture in the House"

One thing that puzzles me about that story is how the narrator just wandered into the house. I realize it was raining outside but were the mores of that time so different that during a rain storm people just let themselves in?

Frequently yes. It's not that outdated in some parts of North America today. When I was growing up in New Brunswick, a law was still on the books saying it was illegal to lock a camp in the deep woods. The reason? Someone might need to take shelter in a deaperate situation.

I guess I feel like eating a corpse after it has already died isn't really that horrible. It's taboo of course, but its not hurting anyone, and meat is meat. I think willingly eating yourself is 100 times worse.

Concur. Eating someone that has died, from the perspective of literal harm, there is no victim. It could be worse, if the person wasn't dead at the time, and in the second case, the person who wasn't dead didn't even care that they were being killed because it was so bad.

Make Best Korea spend a buttload of money on rocket launches until they eventually run out of money after China finally cuts them off. Fatt Dingdongs ends up being deposed (and eaten), and all those refugees start spilling across the borders into China (which serves Bejing right after all these decades).

Really? That's the Reagan doctrine? Because it sounds an awful lot like the Osama Bin Ladin Doctrine where the U.S. spends itself into recession fighting the war on "terror." Bonus: we invade Iraq for no discernible reason.